Running From the Clock
by Slytherin In the Impala
Summary: Citizens of Itex are born with the date they'll die tattooed on their wrist. Max doesn't believe the propaganda they send out, though, and is determined for her little brother to survive past his eighth birthday. Rated M for language and violence.
1. Prologue

In a country of supposed peace, happiness, and security, there are approximately 5,564 hospitals.

Nearly all of those said hospitals assist pregnant women with labor and giving birth. But we aren't going to focus on those five thousand-some hospitals.

We're just going to focus on one in Arizona; the Banner-University Medical Center of Phoenix. There are almost 450 doctors that work there. Almost a hundred and fifty are having lunch right now and the rest are working. One is helping an elderly lady to her car, marveling at the date on the lady's arm—but we'll get to that later.

There are many hallways in the twisting maze of a hospital, all packed to the brim with patients, concerned familial members, and workers. Surprisingly, the only sounds in the hallway are murmurs in low tones. There are no tears, no yelling. The doctors can't alter fate. Death is as commonplace now as taking a breath. Unless the date on the patient's arm is today's date or within a week of today, not much worry will be given to those patients.

After the fourth World War, America decided they'd be better off without a president—one main leader who can dictate what all other people do. Because, of course, that's what the president's power had turned into—a kingship, a dictatorship, but without the appropriate title. Once-America, Past-America, Was-America, is now called Itex. The governing body is a Council—the Council of 15—of, of course, 15 of the most brilliant and ruthless scientists of their time. The Council of 15's names are not and never will be disclosed, for security reasons, of course. In case enemies of Itex might attack them. The real reason is that they are worried of what their citizens might do to them if they ever find out what really happens to those whom disappear on their _day_ , on what happens to those 'miscarried' babies, about what happens behind closed doors. They might be the janitor cleaning up that woman's spilled food or Mrs. Janet, the nice lady who gives the kids cookies after school.

Itex was built upon treachery, a few elders enjoy saying, and upon treachery it will fall.

Those elders are the few with any spots of color left in their souls, a single splotch called hope. Most everyone inbetween the children of this era and the children of two eras before them—those few elders still alive—have only grey within their souls, only the sole purpose the Council of 15 calls 'life'. Real life is a mix of all colors, if experiences and emotions could be colors that make splotches against the soul if the soul was a painting, and only the ones who want to do something can't and the ones who could do something won't.

Two adults, two inbetweens, are inside a room with a plain white door only adorned with the numbers '3726' in fake gold nail-on numbers. The '6' has lost one nail over the years and hangs slightly crooked but apart from that it is practically flawless—the hallway, the door, the room. Except, of course, for the two little girls sitting with their backs to the wall in the hallway, listening silently to the cries of the woman inside 3726.

The two girls are eight and four years old. The eight year-old listens in silence to her mother's cries, her head bowed as if praying—but she doesn't know what praying is. There is no one God with a capital G in Itex. The Council of 15 are gods.

The two girls couldn't look more different, except for their eyes. The older sibling has stick-straight dirty blonde hair, a freckled pointy nose, and light brown eyes. The younger sister has rich chocolate brown curls, a roundy nose, and dark brown, almost black round eyes. The older girl has long, gangly limbs that could be and will be razor-sharp with muscles while the younger girl's figure already hints at curves to come.

The younger girl, whose name is Ella, shifts. Her bottom is growing numb from sitting for so long on the hard tile floor. She never has had to sit still for this long before! On the other hand, since her older sister, Max, had sat down, she hadn't twitched once. Not even her hair stirred. It was as if she had been frozen in time, a masterpiece of sorts, titled 'Worry in the Hospital' since she is worrying at the hospital. Why would the title be anything creative when creativity is banned?

Ella fidgets with the linen wrapped around her wrist. Unseen by her, Max's eyes flit to the small movements. She hates that cloth.

One day, at the beginning of Itex, the Council of 15 made an amazing discovery—they found out how to alter someone's DNA just so that the day they died would be tattooed on the inside of said person's wrist.

The only catch is that said person is unable to see the date. Everyone else can, but the owner of the wrist and date cannot.

"Certainty," the Council had preached, "will make way for peace."

The certainty of everyone except for yourself knowing when you'll die, apparently, had been what they'd meant.

 _All just a bunch of bullshit,_ Max snarls to herself. _Propaganda. Bullshit._

Of course, she doesn't really know what that means. She's only eight years old, after all. That's only what she's heard her mother murmur late at night when she was supposed to be asleep.

Max stiffens almost infinitesimally as there is complete silence; not even Ella lets out a breath.

Then the harsh whining of a newborn baby fills the air and the statue relaxes.

Ella bounds onto her feet and practically crashes into the door before swinging it open seconds before impact.

"Meet Ari," Jeb announces proudly to his two young girls as they enter. "Your baby brother."

Max gazes at the little boy's wrist before Valencia can twitch it away. Pretending like she hadn't seen the date, she lets her eyes slide over the rest of the boy. He's pink, loud, and small.

He's gonna die before he's eight years old.


	2. Winged

It's not unusual for me to be woken up very, very late at night or very, very early in the morning—whichever way you prefer to think of it—by the pit-pat of feet on our cold tile. They have that same sticky kind of sound that all feet on tile sound like.

It's also not unusual for my door to be cracked open after Ari's gotten his water and for a small head of hair, ruffled by sleep, to poke in from the doorway.

"Nightmare?" I ask thickly. His head bobs quickly.

With the agility only a child terrified of the dark posesses, he steps in, closes the door, and leaps onto my bed. This time, Ari overshoots and catapults straight into my chest and we both let out a huff of air.

Ari has the beautiful mind of a dreamer, but that doesn't automatically provide him pleasant dreams. Too often he is woken by screams coming from his own mouth. His dreams are awful, yes, but he can describe them to me with perfect detail, and they are beautiful.

Too many believe beautiful and terrible to be antonyms. Too many are false.

Beautiful and terrible.

"Wanna talk 'bout it?" I ask thickly. Too often, his nightmares have given _me_ nightmares. I don't know how he stands it. I like to think I help a little bit.

To my dismay, Ari nods his head yes and jumps right into his summary.

"I woke up—in my dream, obviously—and I hurt everywhere. I also... I hated someone so much, Max. It felt like fire was coursing through me, I hated them so much. but I also loved them. I resented them and admired them and loved them and hated them _so much_." Ari pauses. "It felt like I was being pulled in a thousand directions all at once. It was confusing and it _hurt_."

I just pull him closer to me. Ari curls into a smaller ball.

"I put my hand up to my face," he continues, "but I didn't have a hand!" His voice begins to thicken. "I had claws and fur! I had _paws_!" Ari starts to bawl and I rock him back and forth, hushing him gently. I may not like little kids, but Ari's hardly a little kid.

"That's why I hurt, Max," he sobs, "because I was... a... a _freak_!"

I wince. That hits closer to home that it should, I think, because I know Ari is terrified that his dreams make him a freak, an outcast. Sometimes I wonder if the Council of 15 knows that his greatest fear is to be a freak so they send him those dreams. Of course, though, he's only scared of being a freak because of the dreams. It's like the paradox of the chicken and the egg.

Once Ari's calmed down a bit, he continues. It doesn't take long. Jeb doesn't like crying and now it's ingrained in the pair of us that pain is just a message—we can choose to ignore it. Ella is more of a mama's girl, though, and, as much as I hate to put down my family, she just isn't as tough as me and Ari.

Pain is just a message.

To cry is to be weak.

Those were my first words—those two sentences. I said them when I was seven and my mom burst into tears and locked herself in her bedroom for the next two days.

I remember Ari's first words. He spoke much earlier than I had; his first word was when he was four.

I remember he used to follow me around a lot. He also fell a lot and cried a lot. I would pick him back up, tell him to stop, and tell him pain was just a message; we can choose to ignore it.

"You gonna quote Max when you're older, huh, Ari?" Jeb had laughed. "It'll be ingrained in you by then."

Ari had looked at Jeb and squeaked, "Quote?" curiously.

At least that one didn't make my mom cry in her room for two days.

"I got up to look at myself in the mirror," Ari continues, unaware of the path my mind had taken down memory lane. "I didn't look like myself. My eyes were yellow, like an animal's! They had a _look_ in them, one that said I wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone. And it was me! I was a murderous, unhinged freak!"

"What did the bathroom look like?" I interrupt. When he gets like this it's best to keep his mind off the worst of the details.

"It was... cold," Ari just says. "All white and bright lights. Something bad had happened in there."

"Bad like what?"

"Bad like death-bad," he says solemnly. Jeez, there just isn't a good refuge in this dream, is there?

"The tile was white. Salt-and-pepper-looking, but mostly salt." He pauses to yawn; always a good sign. "That was the only non-white in the bathroom except for me."

I start to rub the kid's back with the hell of my hand. Now he's calming down; he won't be awake much longer.

"Then there was Jeb," Ari says, his voice growing fainter as he snuggles into my covers. "You were in some sewers. You were flying."

Now _that_ catches my interest. "How was I flying?"

"You had wings," Ari murmurs. "But you hated me. I hit you and you hit me so hard I broke my neck. Then I woke up."

"Wait, what?" I demand but he's fast asleep, even snoring a tiny bit.

What kind of kid has nightmares about being a freak whose sister hates him, has wings, and then, of all things, _kills_ him?

Maybe there _is_ an element of truth to Ari's fears, maybe he is a little odd. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a freak, though.

As if something's telling me that my little brother is just that—my little brother—my curtains flutter, shining moonlight down onto Ari's peaceful face for a few seconds. At least, it would be peaceful, if not for the small creases he has in his forehead even while sleeping. He looks, well, angelic, for lack of a better word, as his golden hair falls over his forehead in a gentle wave and his features aren't twisted with fright, exhaustion, or anger—the most common expressions he wears.

It should concern me that my seven year-old brother acts older than my eleven year-old sister, but it doesn't. Maybe if we had been raised differently it would, but the lines had always been clearly drawn: Jeb's- Ari and me; Mom's- Ella. I love Ella and Mom, I really do, but they just can't relate to me like Ari and Jeb can. Well, sometimes Jeb.

It's hard to explain.

I guess Ari and I were meant to be warriors, soldiers. It's not like we had a choice. For some reason, Ella got one, though, and she chose the path I wish I could walk on.

Eventually Ari's steady breathing lulls me to sleep.

I dream that I am in a sewer. There is a clump of hair in front of me. Curious and repulsed at the same time, I pick it up.

It vanishes.

 _Drip_

Just a few feet away I spot another clump of fur—and I've realized that it's fur, not hair.

The process repeats again and again until I hear a faint voice calling my name.

"Ari?" I yell.

"Max?" is his faint reply.

"Ari?"

 _Drip_

"Max?"

"Ari?"

"Max?"

 _Drip_

I turn a corner of the twisting maze some call a sewer and instead of Ari, I see Ella.

"Ella!" I start to hurry towards her. "Have you seen—"

Almost slipping on the damp floor, I stop short when Ella turns around without moving her legs. She's rotating.

That's when I notice her purple, swollen tongue, and that her toes are barely brushing the ground. A rope hangs around her neck and her neck hangs at an unnatural angle.

"No!"

 _Drip_

Whirling around, I gasp with surprise when Ari's nose-to-nose with me. I hadn't heard him creep up!

"You found my fur!" he cries, pointing to my arms. Suddenly I'm holding a huge pile of brown, stinking fur. I cough and inhale some by accident. Ari starts to act as a vacuum as the fur starts to drift towards him but I can feel the fur in my throat, an uncomfortable tickle.

 _Drip drip drip_

I'm hacking, trying to get the fur out with my fingers, as Ari cackles wordlessly. A clump brushes against my hand and I _pull_.

 _Drip drip drip drip_

The world is starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges and my mind feels like it's floating away or maybe stuffed with cotton—

I yank and yank and yank but the fur seems to go on forever and then it pops out but it's stained red and sticky and wrapped around something slimy and pink—the fur yanked my heart out through my throat.

"You okay?" Ari asks with fake concern.

 _Drip drip drip drip drip drip_

I collapse onto my knees, hacking up blood, unable to draw breath.

There is a hissing noise behind me, or maybe like paper rubbing against paper, but I can't even kneels anymore and I flop onto my stomach. My eyelids are getting heavy.

Ari kicks me over so I can see what the source of the noise is.

Ella is holding the rope, spitting insults at me—or trying to, at least, as the words are garbled as she chokes on her swollen tongue.

 _Dripdripdripdripdripdripdripdrip_

Moisture of some sort starts to run over my fingers in silky skeins. Ella's neck is purple-blue with indents from the rope and unable to hold up her head. It flops back and forth lifelessly.

I try to draw in a stuttering breath but a salty, coppery liquid flows into my mouth instead. I'm sitting in a pool of blood, unable to move, suffocating.

 _DRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIP_

"You see us, Max?" Ella hisses. "You see what you—"

"Max!"

For a second I am weightless. Then I am one with the floor.

"Time for school," Jeb says harshly. He must've already called me. "And as for _you_ —"

My bed creaks and I can hear Ari's feet hit the ground immediately. _Perfect little soldier,_ I think groggily, raising a hand to rub my aching head where I'd bashed it onto the ground.

"You need to stop running to Max when you're scared. Suck it up and take the fears head on like she did. Max never ran for help when she was scared."

"Yes, sir," Ari says meekly.

 _I never had anyone to run to._


	3. Ghosts

Every day at 8:45 during his Geography class Ari goes to the bathroom. That's when the bell will ring for the high school and the older students will enter the school in a flood of grey and brown, their eyes flashing like dark lights in pale faces. Ari wonders if he will ever be as tall and as strong as Max and her friends.

Every day at 8:47 Max, Nick, James, Monique, and Ella will enter the hallway and Ari will shrink back into the shadows. He knows what Jeb would say if Max told him Ari liked to watch her. He would say that Ari relies too much on Max. He would say if Max tells him again Ari'll be in trouble.

Ari knows that Max wouldn't tell Jeb again. She would only tell the first time because she knows telling Ari off herself won't do a lick of good—they both know she doesn't really mean it.

Ari knows the second Max, Nick, and James enter the hallway because of their hair. Every student including himself has either brown or white-blond hair, but Nick has black, Max is a blonde with more color than the bleach-blondes have and which seems to glow (Mom says her hair is golden) and James has a shock of hair that looks like the fruit that Max will sometimes find out in the woods and bring back (their special secret, she whispers to Ari, and then she'll call them strawberries or Iggy-berries).

Ari supposes that even if Max saw him watching her she wouldn't recognize him. Mirrors are few and far between but there is one in their cafeteria and he saw his reflection one lunch and realized he looks exactly like every boy in his class. They all have the same haircut, hair color, clothes, blank expression. They're all almost completely identical except for their eyes and Max wouldn't get close enough, anyway, to see his eyes. Maybe if they were allowed to smile in school Max could see the creases in his forehead and the crow's feet at his eyes and his dimples and recognize him but they're not so she doesn't.

School-Max strides past Ari, brisk, no-nonsense. Somehow she makes a click-click sound with her flats that echoes around the hallway that would be otherwise silent except for the brush of feet on tile and clothes against skin and fabric against fabric. At school, Max acts aloof and as though she's better than everyone. Ari doesn't know why. At least at home she's warm to him (definitely not to Jeb, not after that one year they hadn't seen him at all, but she's not particularly mean to him either). At home her eyes will crinkle when she laughs and when she looks at Ari her eyes are soft and dark like melted chocolate but at school she doesn't laugh, just scoffs and sneers and when Ari's close enough to see her eyes they're dark and cold like drafty tunnels you can't see the end of. At home whenever someone brings up Nick, Max flushes a tiny bit and Ari can see her eyes do something that he just can't describe. At school when someone brings up Nick, Max's face tightens and she snaps at that person.

Ari checks his watch again. He still has a minute until his five-minute bathroom break is up. If he's not in the classroom by then, he'll be in trouble. It's happened already two times this year and if it happens again he'll get a call home and no recess.

Ari tries to smile but it feels too wide, too grotesque, so he lets his face fall back into the solemn expression required of all those above the kindergarten grade. If he tilts the watch just right, he nearly gets to see his reflection on the glass. It's like a ghost to see himself that way, as if he's lost all substance, but it's better than nothing. And really, living in Itex, it does seem as if he's lost all substance.

Ari enters the classroom with fifteen seconds to spare and settles back into his seat next to Michael, the only boy in his class to have brown hair. Michael's grey eyes seem to smile at him sadly. Michael's friendly, if a little quiet, and smart. One time Ari saw him practicing smiles in the bathroom. Michael saw him watching and said he 'liked to practice' because his 'face gets stiff'.

Ari's teacher, Ms. Hancock, is just finishing up Geography. Her eyes flash angrily at Ari behind her thin spectacles, the lines around her mouth becoming even more prominent as she purses her lips. Probably angry she hasn't a good reason to be angry at him, Ari supposes. Maybe angry she can't call home on him and make him sit inside as the others walk around the track in the school's background four times.

After Geography class is History, Ari's least favorite class, mostly because Ms. Hancock just reads out of the textbook.

"Let's all flip to page fifty-nine," she says firmly, no matter that Ari missed the previous day because he felt sick. "'Now, the First Member of the Council of 15, whose name shall not be disclosed, has graciously accepted power..."

Her voice fades away as Ari flips back to page fifty and begins to read.

' _In the days of the United States of America (now called Itex) war fraught citizen's lives every day. The first World Wars were fought tens of centuries ago until a period of peace until the Third World War, which commenced officially on January 23, 2574, roughly six centuries ago from present day (the year 3180) triggered a massive flood of Wars. The final World War (World War VII) had a casualty rate of over a thousand a month._

 _The First Member of the Council of 15, whose name shall not be disclosed, had narrowly avoided the draft of World War VI, knew he/she had no chance of missing the draft for World War VII. Instead, The First Member volunteered for the war and rose quickly through the ranks. Before long, in the chaos of war, he/she was General of the United States Military._

 _A highly effective military attack from the former country Germany, unfortunately, succeeded in their mission of assassinating our current president, President William Arnold, as well as our current Vice President, Vice President Smith Lee._

 _Graciously, The First Member accepted the title of President and within a month, World War VII was won. Unfortunately, a poorly timed nuclear attack wiped out the rest of the population of the world. The First Member now had to sustain a relatively small country without outside help, and, seeing the wisdom of a Council, formed the Council of 15. To date (the year 3180) only one Council Member has passed away. Council Member 13, Elizabeth Stone*, passed away at the age of sixty-nine due to old age. The identities of other Members still remain disclosed, but we rest assured that The First, in all his or her infinite wisdom, has not passed and remains with us still._

 _*The names of Council Members are revealed only at the time of one's passing.'_

"Recess," Ms. Hancock announces grimly moments after reading the last word on the page.

If Ari was allowed to grin, he would. Recess is the best time of day. The whole school has recess at the same time so he gets to see Max, Nick, and the others.

His class is the last to get out every day, but it's still easy to pick out his sister and her friends from the crowd. Actually, though, he doesn't need to pick them out from the crowd, because they're not _in_ the crowd.

Ari starts to hurry as he gets caught up in the game Max and the others are playing. They're playing with an object—judging by the shape and color, it's an apple—by throwing it at each other. As Ari watches, Max breaks from the track and runs into the middle of the field to catch the apple with a leap that ends up with her rolling a few paces.

"MAXINE MARTINEZ," a teacher booms through a microphone. Ari feels a small burst of pride that he knows Max's name, though that's only because she breaks the rules so often.

"Yeah, yeah." Max's reply fades into the scuffing quiet. "Nick!" She hurtles it above the students' heads across the track where a long-fingered hand reaches up and grabs it smoothly.

Ari's class merges with the other students effortlessly but he doesn't stick with them. He pushes through the crowd until he's standing next to Max.

"Hey," he says breathlessly.

Max beams down at him. "Hey Ari! Wanna piggyback ride?"

"Huh?" Ari cocks his head but she's already swung him around onto her back and they're both laughing and maybe the teachers are yelling but she breaks out of the crowd to sprint across the field and Ari's just burying his face into her hair as he giggles and eventually the teachers give up and then he gets to sit on Nick's shoulders and he can see _everything._

He tilts the watch so that he can see his reflection and it looks a little more solid in the sunlight and maybe he's not a ghost when he's with Max, and if he has to stick with Max to have substance, then that's what he'll do.


	4. Countdown

Ari's day had been normal up unitl lunch.

Geography was actually pretty fun; they played a trivia game on the specific Laws of Itex. The teams were boys against girls and the boys won. They got five extra minutes of recess as a reward.

History had been boring as usual as Ms. Hancock read from the textbook but since she never looks up and Ari's already read the chapter, for the rest of the class he got to draw.

He hadn't even realized he was drawing the bathroom from his dreams until Samuel coughed behind him, shaking him back to his senses. Concentrating now, he started to draw himself in the mirror, but the freak-Ari, not the real Ari. It wasn't long until Ari was struggling with the eyes. They were plenty lifelike but lacked the madness that had horrified him at first.

Max wasn't at recess. Nudge said something about her getting in trouble. Ari noticed with some smugness how down Nick looked without someone to start the apple-throwing game. Every time he sees Nick and Max without the other, he notices how empty they seem and wonders how no one else hasn't noticed it. All of Max's friends have special powers but they can't see it. Ari can; maybe that's _his_ superpower.

After recess he was relieved to see Max at her usual lunch table. Ari doesn't normally sit with her during lunch but he does sit at the next table over, plus he wanted to make sure she wasn't in too much trouble.

Ari sat with Samuel and Michael but his attention was fixated on Max. She whispered animatedly with Monique but what Ari found most interesting was the tiny curl to Nick's lips as he watched Max. That was practically his equivalent of flat-out beaming at Ari's sister. For years Ari's noticed Nick's dark eyes on his sister whenever they were in the same room.

Then Ari's day takes a turn for the worse.

As a girl in Max's grade walks by him—Lissa, Ari thinks she's called—she trips and spills her water on Ari.

For a few seconds he is speechless as he splutters and shivers—the water's _cold_.

Maybe the water was an accident, but then as Ari's getting up to get napkins, the girl snags off the linen wrapped around his wrist and pushes him to the ground.

There is a collective gasp all around the lunchroom as Ari's wrist is exposed. It's paler than the rest of his skin, but the date on his wrist seems to burn when the water drips onto it. Ari can practically hear it sizzle.

Sopping wet, freezing, hurt, and confused, Ari clutches his wrist to his chest as he scrambles on the ground to find his cloth. His scrabbling hand reminds him slightly of a spider. Ari's half-blind from the water running into his eyes from his hair and the tears blurring his vision.

When he does find his cloth, wet and stained with some unidentifiable food, Ari presses it to his date and as if surfacing from sleep, just now he hears the screams.

"Don't _ever_ touch my little brother again!" Max is screaming over and over.

Blood seeps through the girl's scalp, making it appear as if she has James' hair as she shrieks for Max to stop, holding up a feeble hand to ward her off. Max has resorted to inhuman growls now and her foot catches the girl's hand and swings it backwards into the mirror so hard there is an audible crunch and a spiderweb of cracks emanates from the indent of the girl's knuckles.

Then the bell rings and all the kids sprint out of the cafeteria. _They're all scared of Max now_ , Ari thinks through the haze in his mind.

Brown curls materealize in front of his nose and then he processes that Monique is tying his linen up in such a way she wouldn't be able to sneak a peek at his wrist if she tried.

That means more to Ari than he can say so he just swallows and closes his eyes when she grips him tight; not so much a hug as a clasp of reassurance and then Ari looks up and James walks by the girl, giving her a savage kick as he does, and Nick's holding Max in his arms tightly but she's not gripping back. As Ari nears he can see that she just looks dazed and confused like she can't remember how the girl got onto the ground or how her knuckles split open.

Nick just rubs comforting circles into her back with his hand and leads her into the boy's bathroom.

Two boys sprint out immediately.

Monique's saying something as they walk out of the school but Ari feels like he's having a bath and just stuck his head underwater. Words are just floating in through the haze, making no sense.

Leave... Max...

 _They can't leave Max,_ Ari thinks distantly but his mouth isn't cooperating and al he can do is keep walking.

Trouble... parents?... punishment... here soon...

They turn onto their street but stop at her and James' house.

Parents not home...

Ari can hear himself saying something but it sounds warped. The ground is sliding underneath him, pulling him towards the bathroom and then he's standing in front of the mirror but the monster from his dreams is staring back at him—

Ari blinks and it feels like his center of gravity has shifted but at least his mind is operating now. The monster isn't staring at him now. All he sees is Ari, albeit paler than he normally is.

Ari splashes some cold water on his face before exiting the room. It looks too much like the washroom from his dreams.

Before he enters the sitting room where he can hear voices, Ari slides the linen down his arm just enough to see the date printed there. He's never told anyone, even Max, that he can see his date. It would just result in more drama and, worst of all, inspections done by Itex.

Nope, it's best to keep his mouth shut about it. Ari's old enough to know he's not going to live much longer.

(He's not old enough to think about how Max and Mom will feel) (when he DIES)

He's old enough to be scared (because he doesn't know what happens when you die).

Acting on an impulse, Ari runs back into the bathroom and holds up his wrist to see in the mirror.

Sure enough, the reflection is of the same numbers.

Ari's breath leaves him in a disappointed sigh. He's not sure, exactly, what he'd been hoping for, but it wasn't that.

When Ari enters the sitting room, Max is arguing with Mom over the voice projector.

"She started it!" Max shouts.

Valencia's calm, if tired, voice responds. "Yes, but you escalated the confrontation by a hundred percent. Her hand and nose are broken and if we weren't paying the—"

"Well, of course I defended my baby brother," Max yells at the ceiling, glaring as if the Griffiths had the new camera projectors installed too. "She poured water on him, ripped off his cloth, and pushed him down!"

There is a long pause. None of the older kids have noticed Ari yet. He feels a bolt of anger at Max's words. He's not a baby!

"And that's why you're only suspended for one week, while—"

"Lissa gets three, yeah, I get it." Max rolls her eyes.

"Why did she do it to Ari specifically?"

"Because Lissa hates me," Max snarls.

"Why?"

Iggy shifts, sharing a glimpse with Nudge that only Ari sees. Nudge rolls her eyes in response to whatever he'd nonverbally said and her eyes flick to where Nick's standing, leaning on the wall.

 _Oh._

"Have you talked to Ari about his date yet?" Valencia inquires, sounding tired. "There's little to no chance no one saw his date and even if only one student did, the school in its entirety will know by the end of the day."

"How am I supposed to tell him?" Max demands angrily. Max doesn't cry, but she must have gotten dust in her eyes or something because she swipes at them viciously. "'Hey, Ari, so just so you know, you only have two months left to live'—"

Judging by their unfazed expressions, the rest of her group already know about Ari's date. That surprises him. Why would they? Why would Max tell them? It's not like they can do something about it or something.

Ari could go back to the bathroom, flush the toilet and let everyone know he's coming in. Max would think of something to say by then. She always does.

Instead the back of Ari's neck prickles. He turns his head to see Nick—no, Fang right now—watching him. _Fang_ blinks once, twice, calmly. If Ari wanted to go back he could; Fang isn't telling anyone.

The words slip out before Ari can turn: "Ma—" Ari's voice croaks. "Max, I already know."

There is a click as Valencia hangs up.

 _Jeb would have stayed on._


	5. Lies

"Ari." Max kneels in front of him, her long, sandy hair sweeping over her shoulders. Her voice is even and soft, a tone he'd never heard before and it unsettles him more than knowing the day he'll die is exactly 72 days.

Ari knows exactly what it feels like to have that hair brushing against his back when he's sleeping next to Max. He knows what Max looks like in the mornings of the weekend when she'll open her eyes and blink at him and then smile and then they'll go downstairs and they'll make pancakes and if she'd snuck out recently, she'll put in berries that burst on his tongue with tangy flavors. He knows what she looks like when she's struggling with homework and putting her head in her hands and pulling her hair nearly out and blinking back tears because everyone in her class knows how to do this stuff, _Fang_ knows how to do this stuff, but she doesn't know how to do this stuff. He knows what she looks like when she's sitting on their roof on the special mornings he's not up in the middle of the night and they're both watching the sky lighten with millions of different shades of colors, brightening from dark, dark black to navy blue to light blue to grey to yellow to orange to pink to red and finally the clouds clear and part to reveal the dull shade of blue that it always is.

Ari knows what she looks like when she's angry, fists clenched, knuckles white, eyes narrowed and head tilted forwards so that that sandy hair tumbles over her shoulders again. Ari knows what she looks like in the middle of the night when he's woken her up, her eyes darting around the room and checking for threats even when he reassures her that it was just a nightmare, not real, just in his head

(not real, then why does he always need her)

(not real, then why is he terrified of sleeping without his protector, his flawless protector Maxine

(Maximum)

next to him?)

and then she'll tell him that he's safe now, he'll always be safe when he's with her.

Ari knows what Max looks like when she's scared to death of his dreams but trying to hide it, her breath shaky and eyes hard, angry at whatever's making him dream the dreams even though it's him, it's himself that's so messed up in the head. Ari knows what Max looks like when she's sleeping, her brows and forehead not furrowed and creased like they are even when she's smiling, eyes relaxed like they never are even when she's smiling.

(Sometimes it'll occur to him that maybe he loves Max a little _too_ much, that no one he knows relies on their siblings as much as he does Max, but then Max will smile at him and the sun will shine out of that smile and Ari will have to restrain himself from worshipping her and the voices in his head are silent because no one else he knows has dreams either and no one else he knows has nightmares that wake him up screaming in the night)

Ari's never seen her eyes wide when she's awake, he's never seen her forehead smooth when she's awake, he's never seen her run her fingers through her hair out of sheer nerves.

He's never seen her this unsettled, eyes flicking around, mentally tallying up everyone in the room who'll back her up when she'll tell her mother later that it wasn't her that told him and that whenever she told the others Ari had been outside playing soccer or eating with his friends at school. He'd never been _around_ when she'd been talking, and that's true, but then how else would Ari have found out?

"Ari, who told you that?" Max speaks but Fang pushes himself off the wall. Fang's the only one who's not looking completely shocked right now—Ella with her hands thrown up to her mouth, Iggy and Nudge staring at him intently, wide-eyed, Max flat-out _terrifying_ Ari with her quivering hands and the way she's pushing her hair away from her face repeatedly like there are unseen strands obstructing her eyes. Fang hasn't even cocked an eyebrow with interest, in fact, maybe his face is even more blank than usual. The only difference is that his eyes are sweeping up and down Ari's body, faltering slightly every time at the dark marks painted on Ari's wrist.

" _Ari._ " Max grips the sides of his face tightly, bringing his eyes back to hers. Blue the shade of the sky, dull and greyish, lock onto chocolate flecked with golden coils. Max is so close now that Ari can feel her breath ghosting over his face like fire, reaching out to warm his icy heart but not quite reaching it. "Ari, _who told you._ "

Ari is beginning to see her lose control now, her fingers tightening on his face so that her nails are pricking his skin ( _I'm going to have a frame on my face,_ Ari thinks wildly, losing control just as Max is losing control because if Max is losing control then he must be losing control as well and if she's losing control then this is way more serious than he'd thought).

How can Ari be _sure_ that he's the only one who can see his date? How can he be sure that everyone can't see their marks and just aren't saying anything because they think nobody else can see theirs?

Ari turns his head to stare at the cloth on Max's wrist and reaches up himself to tug it down. He can tell she stiffens when he touches her cloth but it's a show of the trust Max has in Ari (which makes his chest swell with pride because not even Fang or Jeb can touch her cloth) that she doesn't bat his hand away.

Ari extracts her nails from his face (he can feel little drops of blood swelling up like ticks on the side of his face) and shows her her own wrist.

"Can you see it?" Ari demands.

"Ari—"

" _Can you see it_?"

Max lets out a breath. "No—"

"Then how do you know _when_?" Ari throws down her arm, suddenly angry at her, which is a first. If she's lying to him—which he's sure she's never done before—then how is he to know whether or not she hasn't lied to him before?

"How do you—"

"You told me," Ari snaps, crossing his arms. "You were acting weird and loopy and just told me. I thought you were crazy for a second until I realized you were just _drunk_."

He hadn't had a nightmare that night but he'd still crossed into her room. It'd been later than he normally enters and she'd thrown something into the trash can the second her door started to open. Max hadn't denied him entrance but there was something _off_ about her—her breath smelled sour and she didn't ask him what was wrong, just asked him rudely what he was doing.

Later, Ari looked into the bin and saw an empty bottle, one that he knows belongs with Jeb's other bottles,

(Max and Jeb and Valencia got into a screaming fit the next morning and Ari couldn't tell exactly what it was about but now he thinks about it, it was probably about the bottle)

the ones that Jeb told him strictly to never, _ever_ under _any_ circumstances, touch.

When he'd clambered into her bed she'd been quiet before asking if he could keep a secret. Ari hadn't had the chance to respond before she'd blurted out, "I know my date."

Ari hadn't responded and Max had let out a sigh and laid down and gone to sleep.

Ari had been hoping maybe she could see her own date.

"Fang told me," Max finally tells Ari, letting go of his face and standing up, shock evident on her own. He's never been angry with her before, never grabbed her except for comfort. Immediately Ari feels the loss of her presence like a slap to the face and he wants nothing more than to put his head in her lap and let her tell him it'll be all right except now he's looking at her hard eyes (she's never looked at him this way before; it's the way she looks at the students at school who aren't part of their group) and now he's realizing that even if he has a nightmare tonight he won't be welcome in her room because Max _hates_ being humiliated,

(There had been three deadly times she'd been humiliated in front of the others at their school.

One- She'd been picked last for dodgeball. Max's face had been bright red and she'd been fuming and then she'd thrown the ball so hard at her team captain it'd knocked him over and he'd landed funny on his arm and broken it—friendly fire, Fang told Ari it's called. "Oops," Max had snarled over the boy's harsh sobs.

Two- Max had been the only one in her class to get less than a hundred on a test and the teacher told everyone. Even Fang had laughed and after that Max had been considerably cooler to him for the next month. Fang had been miserably glaring at Max, who'd invited a boy named Sam to take his spot at their lunch table. Everyone in their group had been uncomfortable but no one was going to question her.

Three- Jeb had called the school to yell at Max for not doing the dishes. She'd accidentally clicked on 'Speaker', though, and the entire call was steadily flushing redder and redder as she tried to undo it. That recess she 'accidentally' punched someone in the face and sprained someone's ankle by tripping them.)

especially in front of her friends, and Ari had done it in front of _all_ of them.

Just now Ari realizes how small he is, especially compared to everyone else in the group. Why is he even _in_ it? He's not as strong as Max or as smart as Fang. He's not old like Iggy or funny like Nudge.

He's just Max's baby brother.

 _I can notice,_ he reminds himself. _That's my superpower._

 _You don't have a nickname._ The thought comes unbidden, harsh and quick and snarled.

 _My name is short enough,_ Ari thinks harshly and slams a door on the voice. He'll visit it later when he's alone.

"You can see yours," Iggy realizes. Fang might be book-smart but Iggy's got the real brains not necessary for school but for living the way Max had described to him once (wearing whatever you want, the colors of the sky and the ground in your hair and in your clothes and being able to drive your own mini-buses called _cars_ and having your hair whatever length you want and dreaming and going into the forest and living in different places throughout your life).

"You guys told each other your dates," Ari says back, eyes on the ground. He doesn't want to look inside Max's hard-as-diamond eyes right now. It's as true a statement as the one Iggy had just said and for the first time in his life Ari sees Max inhale close her eyes longer than a second as if actually gathering her thoughts together.

"How long?" she snarls.

Ari just stares up at her.

Max grabs his arm and yanks it towards her, ripping the cloth off his arm with her other hand. She nearly bends it backwards trying to show it to Ari. "How _fucking_ long?"

"Since forever," Ari says in a small voice and the horrible feeling of having Max's coarse voice cursing at him without any hint of the warm familiarity he's used to makes his head pound with the threat of oncoming tears. "I—I thought everyone could see it and then by the time they were telling us that we couldn't see our own dates I was old enough to—" Ari stops to take a deep, shuddering breath and one tear slides right down his cheek. "To know that it wouldn't b-be good to tell anyone!"

Instead of falling off his jaw, the tear clings to his skin and tickles on its way down his neck before disappearing inside his shirt.

"Well, you were right," Max says gruffly. "But me?"

"I didn't know if everyone else could see theirs and just was lying!" Ari wails, finally acting like the six year-old he really is.

"You thought _I_ was lying to you?"


	6. Cracked

He's known her since he was a toddler. She's two months older than him and was taller by two inches until this year. She's always been awake when he jumps from his roof to hers and taps on her window and then they sit on the roof and pretend to fly. He's seen her with a blotchy, tear-streaked face at her grandma's funeral and with a frilly dress and pout at church. She's seen him cry and smile—an unusual feat because he's already so worn down by the world he can't manage a charged expression. She might even _be_ the reason he smiles and cries—he's only ever done it around her, so how could he know?

She's always been by his side and through some impressive screaming fits at school they aren't even deterred by their teachers. She gives him her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and he gives her his potato chips. She shimmies onto his roof when she can't wish away the nightmares and his comforting presence will ward them off for her.

It's no surprise, really, the rumors that swirl around their heads when they graduate to middle school, the tantrums she'd thrown in order to get her schedule changed to match his— _Why doesn't he think she's odd?_ they'll say. _Only someone who's madly in love with someone like that could possibly put up with her._ They're quite right in that it's hard to put up with her. She's abrasive and, quite frankly, rude at times. Other times she's abnormally clingy and sensitive. She's quick to insult and even quicker to react. Her tongue is as razor-sharp as the fingernails used to scratch the opponents she fights on a daily basis at school. Her punches—both the spoken and physical ones—are always loaded and right in the areas she can tell you're weakest in. The one thing they're wrong about is how they think he loves her. He's devoted to her, maybe; he would do anything for her, surely; and the same applies when reversed, but love? Surely not.

Even he would agree, though, with the rest; she is a right bitch.

Unfortunately, she is _his_ bitch so whenever he hears someone say something like that the person pays.

She may be a right bitch, but she's also his best friend. Who comforts him and reassures him he's still alive when he knocks on her window at four in the morning? Who defends his honor in school (something he's told repeatedly by his father he should be ashamed about, but she's perfectly capable of doing it and she even _wants_ to do it; why shouldn't he let her?) and wrestles with him and doesn't complain when he bruises her with his hard hits? Who makes sure he's appreciated even if she doesn't say it? Who draws the attacks, aimed for him, to herself and then bounces them back at the attacker-turned-attacked?

Who does he do the exact same thing for?

He's taught her many things—the rules of football, even though she still calls it 'a glorified game of fetch', how to write essays, how to leap from one of their close roofs to the other without falling and breaking a limb, and she's done the same for him—how to categorize the weaknesses of the people around them, how to move when you're fighting as if you have wings and are really just twirling above the ground, how to punch hard and make it _hurt_.

They're never two people; it's always _Him-and-Her_ or _Her-and-Him_ but never _Him and Her_ or _Her and Him._ Maybe that's a bad thing, maybe he should stop relying on her so badly to protect him and maybe she shouldn't have learnt Morse Code with him so they could cheat during tests. Maybe they shouldn't bridge the gap between their houses, only a leap, in the middle of the night when they can't see and are leaping two stories above the ground, to talk to the other. Maybe she should suck it up and eat her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and maybe he should choke down the chips that make his stomach churn. Maybe he shouldn't sneak through her window just to see her and maybe she shouldn't stare at his when he's not there as if he'll appear and give her a nod. Maybe he should stop staring at her profile when it's highlighted by the sun, but he can't imagine how someone with such an _energy_ could be trapped in such a petite body—just this year he'd started to grow and now she barely comes up to his chin on a good day. Maybe she should stop staring at his black hair under the fluorescent lights and try to see just how many shades of blue and brown appear.

Maybe they shouldn't do those things, but no one's told them it's _wrong_. No one's told them it's _wrong_ to sneak into someone's room in the middle of the night—especially a person of the opposite gender—just to see them. No one's told them it's _wrong_ to climb onto their roofs and not sleep the whole night in lieu of chatting. No one's told them it's _wrong_ to say their darkest fears baldly, highlighted by the lightening sky. No one's told them it's _wrong_ for him to take her into the boy's bathroom and set her onto a sink and stand inbetween her legs and wish he could press his lips to hers, feather-light presses that he knows would drive her crazy. No one's told them it's _wrong_ that she's fighting his battles for him. No one's told them it's _wrong_ to categorize the weaknesses of everyone around them, even each other, and use those during a nasty argument. No one's told them it's _wrong_ to push and shove each other when they're angry. No one's told them it's _wrong_ to leave bruises on the other, both out of play and anger. No one's told them it's _wrong_ to fight on a roof.

No one's told him it's _wrong_ to shove her too close to the edge of said roof.

No one's told him it's _wrong_ to see the opportunity to help and not do anything.

No one's told him it's _wrong_ to want to see if his best friend can fly.

No one's told him it's _wrong_ to smirk when her arms start to windmill and possibly for the first time and definitely for the only time in his life does he see panic cross her face.

No one's told him it's _wrong_ not to yell for help when his best friend's lying spread-eagled on the ground, limbs splayed unnaturally and sandy hair surrounding her head like a halo.

No one's told him it's _wrong_ to be disappointed she can't fly.

Her arm's broken, she tells him stiffly later that day or early the next day on the roof. Everyone's surprised she's not dead or paralyzed, yet she'd woken up just a few minutes after the fall—dazed and confused yes, but dead, no. Apart from the numbers on her wrist, she should have died.

He says he's sorry.

She laughs. _You don't mean that_.

 _I don't; you're right._

 _Well, I forgive you anyways._

 _You shouldn't._

 _Well, I do._

It's pure silence all around them for a moment or so until a bird chirps bravely and the illusion's shattered.

 _Why?_

She doesn't look at him and pretends to be stupid for a moment. _Why what?_

 _Why do you forgive me?_

She waits and waits and waits. He gets the impression she's searching for the right words and just as the sun erupts over the horizon she says she probably would have reacted the same way had their positions been switched.

He asks why again.

She says that she had felt for a moment that she could fly. She sometimes wonders if _he_ could fly. Maybe if the situation had been reversed she would have been too surprised at the utter normality, but ungraspable reality, that neither of them _can_.

 _Why do you think we can fly?_

 _Maybe we were birds in a past life,_ she says. He's not sure exactly what the inflection in her tone is—not happy, surely, but content, possibly? Peaceful? Peaceful isn't normally a word you could use to describe her.

Yet she undoubtedly feels at peace right now because though her leg swings back and forth, dangling over the edge of the roof, as they sit side-by-side, she doesn't search for words to bridge the silence. She doesn't shove to start conflict because she's uncomfortable or bored.

She just sits there and he sits with her.

No one's told them it's _wrong_ to spend the entire night with the other, that it's _wrong_ for her to eventually melt into his side because she's cold, that it's _wrong_ for him to sling his arm over her shoulder to invite her closer, that it's _wrong_ that they take turns exchanging glances with a silly little grin on her face and an amused smirk on his.

No one's told them it's _wrong_ to do so, so they do.

* * *

He hasn't seen her.

Not at all today.

To say he's worried is an understatement. To say he's ripping his hair out is an overstatement. To say he's in the grey area between is a fact.

Somehow someone else found out he had broken her arm and now all the other students know. He suspects it was the motormouth with the bouncy curls the same shade of brown as her eyes but only slightly darker than her skin, the girl who won't stop talking unless she's unconscious, the girl with a legal name that's fancy as hell and a nickname that doesn't even make sense. He suspects it was Nudge.

Or maybe it was Iggy-the-Iguana, as Max likes to call him, named after a species of iguanas that have nearly white, frosty blue eyes that shouldn't well be natural and white-and-orange stripes. Iggy's so pale he looks like snow with eyes that look like the sky on a cold but clear day. His hair is the color of the fires he so loves making. Whenever he looks at the pyro, he's reminded of a black-and-white photograph with only blue and orange allowed still. Maybe it was the pyromaniac that told, but he still suspects it was Nudge.

The most likely choice, however, is the girl's sister—a girl with a name of 'Ella', which means 'girl' in Spanish. The girl's got sandy straight hair while her sister has curly. She's got a pale complexion that's still not as pale as the pyromaniac's while her sister's got a darker one. She's full of harsh angles while her sister's got curves.

She and her sister are nearly opposites. "Opposites attract," someone had once said to him. That's not true. She and her sister clash every day instead of meeting calmly—there's shouting and pushing and yelling and stony silence from when the magnets had been pulled apart again.

He has eyes that narrow with suspicion easily and a face that settles naturally into a neutral expression. His hair likes to flop in front of his eyes and his shoulders are wide. Sometimes, when the light hits his head right, his hair will nearly turn blue. He's got a chip on his tooth from when he'd bit his best friend years ago on the ear (she'd pushed him down with anger). The mark's still there, which she likes to tease him about constantly, and that's where he got his own nickname—Fang.

The girl. Where to start with her?

She's got brown eyes that are flecked with copper. Underneath the right eye is a slight white scar—don't ask her how, because even she doesn't know, but somehow she'd nearly sliced her eye open with a kitchen knife when she was four. Her forehead's already got wrinkles from raising her eyebrows with contempt—just one look like that at school and you're done for socially—and the skin between her brows creases when she scowls. On the right side of her jaw is a scar from a pimple she'd not been able to stop picking at and on her left earlobe is the red line that runs down it vertically—she'd ripped the earring she'd been wearing out of her ear the day of her grandma's funeral. She's got scars around her ankles and on her left shoulder from bug bites she'd picked at while bored during church.

She's a scarred and cratered person compared to what her smooth skin had used to be when she was but a day old, yet she's proud of her scars. She says they show that she's actually been living instead of staying inside and being a wimp and not getting hurt.

And then her personality. She's ferocious, protective, mischievous. She can sense trouble a mile away and yet for some reason still runs to it. Maybe she even attracts it. She never backs down from a challenge and runs the school without even knowing more than four people personally. She tries to live each day to the max, and that's where she got her name—Maximum Ride.

Fang's sure that Ari despises him now. It's no secret to the seven year-old that Fang will tap on her window and she his. When they both clamor for Max's attention, she'll pull her little brother to the roof and he'll huddle in a mass of blankets near a small outcropping and he'll start to snore and that's when Fang and Max will talk.

Surely someone's gone into Max or Fang's rooms while they were on the roof. Should it anger Fang that nobody bothered to look for them?

Max had told him that it wasn't his fault and that doesn't help the guilt—but he doesn't feel sorry, either. Yet the second Ari sees Fang at school during recess, he's a flurry of feather-light punches that serve more to annoy Fang than injure him.

"You don't deserve to ever go near my sister again!" the flushed blond screams, staring up at Fang with blue eyes shining against a red face. Said eyes narrow when Fang doesn't respond.

Fang never responds to anyone except Max, so the little boy shouldn't take it personally.

Nevertheless, Ari brings his little foot right into the space between Fang's legs and he grunts and hunches over. Just now Max decides to appear and grabs Ari off Fang, swinging him up and into her arm.

"Hey, little man, I'm good." She bounces Ari as they walk. Ari traces a finger over the spot where he'd signed his name in big letters along with 'I LOVE YOU'. "You don't need to fight my battles for me; I can do that myself. Even with a broken arm." Max shoots Fang a look of mirth.

Fang's confused. What's funny about that? Maybe it's the way he's limping now.

Ari buries his head into Max's neck and breathes in deeply, eyelashes fluttering against her skin. "Does it hurt now, Maxi?"

Max doesn't let anyone, not even Fang, call her Maxi. She shakes her head. "Not now, no."

"I had a nightmare last night that I was falling," Ari says. Fang notices the way Max tenses. "Do you think that's because you fell?"

A muscle tics in Max's jaw as she forces a smile. "Just coincidence, Ar."

Ari nods and buries his face again in her neck.


End file.
